Pushy lobbyists are spoiling Conservative Party Conference. It's bliss when they're left outside

The trajectory I follow through conference rarely alters. Arrive in host city, enjoy being out of London, harrumph at the pointless news stories about made-up divisions ("split" being politico-speak for what the rest of us call "discussing ideas"), make way to conference venue, try not to blush at the handsome policemen, fail, buy tea, realise I have a cold, wander round conference hall, sign up for various newsletters from various groups about whom I have no prior knowledge, realise I don't know anyone, realise I lack the social skills to remedy this, remember I have a cold, return to hotel room, go home early, vow never to go to Conference again.

Why should this year be any different? I already have a free candle and a promise of a regular email from The Conservative Friends Of Azerbaijan, whom I'm sure are great people, both the Azerbaijanis and their Conservative Friends, but I'm not likely to take a keen interest in their future. And I already have a cold.

Every year it feels less worthwhile, though there are thousands of attendees who wouldn't agree. They outnumber people like me by nearly 2 to 1. As the highly influential ConservativeHome points out today, in the first edition of their conference newspaper, there are 4000 of we party members here in Manchester, each of whom has paid around £700 to attend. There are 7000 delegates from the media, and lobby groups.

The lobbyists are on their way to destroying conference: they take over fringe events, prevent open debate and push, push, push the line their employers pay them to articulate. Try speaking plain Tory at a Stonewall meeting on "Diversity" and see how far you get.

So I am delighted to report that this year is different. Conference might be saved by the Conservative Policy Forum, which is holding a series of debates which are open to party members only. Cynicism about politics was certainly dispersed by the keynote speech today by David Willetts. I was lost in admiration as he discussed the three big problems we face: disorder, debt and distrust (of politicians). Mr Willetts's skill is that while his analysis of the reasons for this summer's riots, for example, is instinctively Tory (we all suspect that inner-city fatherlessness is part of the problem), he also tests his theories by reference to work performed by academics and statisticians within his department. He then sees further, and doesn't just trumpet the findings as a banal slogan ("Children in fatherless homes are less likely to learn the skills that enable them to plan for the future" – the famous "marshmallow" experiment, explained in his book The Pinch), but shows how such empirical validity underpins various Coalition policies, which you might not expect at first glance. The Coalition's investment in apprenticeships, for example, is driven by a desire to increase the number of marriageable men, in recognition of the fact that it's not just the benefit system's couple penalty which is at fault here: there's a problem with "supply" too.

"I asked my officials to tell me what proportion of apprentices went on to form stable families: 64 per cent", he told us, compared with 40 per cent for those who ended their education at GCSE. Statistical reasoning which links the case for investment in apprenticeships (which everyone wants) with stable families (which everyone wants); a policy that is not only good in itself, but which will help rebuild the sort of family-centred society which our Conservative stomach has always known we need.

Mr Willetts achieved something else with his speech. He was throughout courteous and respectful of his Liberal Democrat colleagues, mentioning, for example, Vince Cable's prescience about the problems with private, as well as public, debt, as far back as 2004. I'm a very typical activist: initial hopes about the potential of the Lib Dems has converted into snarling frustration as the months have passed. I don't quite say that I've changed my mind, but Mr Willetts, linking issues as disparate as tuition fees, apprenticeships, public debt, private debt and family breakdown, and showing why Coalition policy toward them is properly "joined up", gave a better reason to believe in this Liberal Tory government than I've heard from anyone else. He also, incidentally, made conference worth attending. And there wasn't a single lobbyist in the room.